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hosted group; if you are not a Motor City Kossack, you are still welcome to jump in and join us!
This week's readings: Chapter 7 "Class, Status, and Residence: The Changing Geography of Black Detroit" and Chapter 8 "'Homeowners' Rights': White Resistance and the Rise of Antiliberalism"
During the 2008 campaign, in the course of a persuasion canvass, I had a particularly toxic interaction with a resident of my hometown. It wasn't just the racial slurs that shocked me (sadly, I had heard those before) but the ferocity of the attack which shook me. After the canvass, I was talking with my field organizer about the "conversation" and mentioned that I was stunned by the level of hatred on display. My FO said something then that has stuck with me ever since. He said that it wasn't so much hatred, as fear. He pointed out that small "c" conservatism is largely about fear and large "c" Conservatism is about preying on that fear. Those words came back to me full force while reading these two chapters about the open housing movement and the resulting pushback and finally, flight, of so many of Detroit's white residents.
Sugrue takes these two chapters to provide first, an outline of the housing opportunities that opened up for black Detroiters in the 1950s as restrictive convenants and eventually, redlining, were increasingly ineffective; and second, the reactions of white homeowners to the changing neighborhoods. The 1948 Supreme Court decision, Shelley v. Kraemer, which ruled that restrictive covenants could not be enforced by the state, was a source of hope, optimism, and action for civil rights activists. Black Detroiters were now able to scale the ghetto walls created by restrictive covenants and expand outward. No longer restricted to Detroit's East Side and the few outlying areas, African-Americans in Detroit moved east and northwest. Housing conditions improved for those who were able to move. (Worthy of note, black Detroiters had previously been restricted to the oldest part of the city, which, in part, explained the run-down, substandard housing; see link: Detroit Annexation Growth 1915-1926 and compare it to Sugrue's map 7.1(a) [p. 184 my edition] or as shown here: Detroit Black Neighborhoods, 1940).
The outgrowth continued throughout the decades (see this gif here, based on Sugrue's maps: Map of Detroit’s Black Population 1940 – 1970). However, Sugrue is quick to point out that although more movement was possible, this relocation was largely only available to the "black bourgeoisie" first and then working-class African-Americans who were fortunate enough to have secure, well-paying jobs. The black underclass of chronically-under/unemployed or those who had lost jobs due to deindustrialization were still confined to the old, inner city neighborhoods. To be sure, discrimination, particularly in lending practices, still existed, and as a result, only the more affluent black population was able to take advantage of the burgeoning open housing movement. Conventional mortgages were often unavailable though, so speculators served as lenders through the use of land contracts (title of the property was held until the contract was fully paid off, preventing the homebuyer from building equity) which generally required high down payments and had high interest rates. These lending practices actually contributed to the instability of neighborhoods, since automation and layoffs and economic restructuring had a detrimental effect on working-class African-Americans, who were most likely to lose their jobs first. Default on monthly payments resulted, housing turnover was high, and housing values plunged. A cycle of "ghettoization" was started.
Speculators/real estate agents also contributed to neighborhood change through the use of "blockbusting." Although at first this contributed to opening opportunities for black Detroiters, it also was an intentional tactic of fearmongering.
The tactics of blockbusting brokers and speculators were simple. They began by selling a house in an all-white block or neighborhood to a black family, or using devious techniques like paying a black woman to walk her baby through a white neighborhood to fuel suspicion of black residential "takeover."...Real estate brokers were so persistent because there were huge profits to be made in racially transitional neighborhoods. They bought houses from panicked white sellers at below-market prices...They quickly sold the houses at substantial markups to blacks willing to pay a premium for good-quality housing in an ostensibly racially mixed neighborhood.
(p. 195-196 my edition)
In response to the open housing movement, the [white] homeowners' movement arose, often originating in neighborhood homeowners' associations, which had not been originally formed strictly for racial exclusion, but also for purposes of neighborhood conformity through building restrictions and zoning laws. Home ownership was, according to Sugrue, "...as much an identity as a financial investment. Many of Detroit's homeowners were descendants of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe, for whom a house and property provided the very definition of a family." (p. 213 my edition)
The homeowners' movement, then, emerged as the public voice of proud homeowners who defined themselves in terms of their tightly knit, exclusive communities. But the simultaneous occurrence of economic dislocation and black migration in postwar Detroit created a sense of crisis among homeowners. Both their economic interests and their communal identities were threatened. They turned to civic associations to defend a world that they feared was slipping away. Increasingly, they blamed blacks for their insecurity.
(p. 214)
Notably, civil rights was often viewed as the antithesis of homeowners' rights. "Civic associations cast their demands for racially segregated neighborhoods in terms of entitlement and victimization." (p. 218 my edition) This view correlated home ownership and citizenship; they had earned the right to property through a combination of hard work and responsibility, without the intervention of government agencies. In addition, some homeowners felt that had the right to choose their neighbors; an extension of the right to freedom of assembly. Finally, many whites believed that, "civil rights for blacks were won only at the expense of white rights." (p. 219)
Because restrictive convenants were no longer a reliable tool, white homeowners increasingly turned to grassroots organizing to gain a political voice. Under Mayor Cobo (R), neighborhood groups were given roles on city commissions related to "...urban development, race relations, and housing." (p. 222 my edition) As the long-standing Mayor's Interracial Committee (MIC) became increasingly involved with and vocal about civil rights, whites and their neighborhood associations became increasingly intent upon seeing it destroyed. This campaign against MIC "combined an anti-civil rights stance with anti-bureaucratic and antitax sentiments." (p. 224) Under Mayor Cobo and with the authorization of the Detroit Common Council, MIC was restructured as the Commission on Community Relations (CCR) and the president of the pro-Cobo Northwest Civic Federation, with no background in race relations or housing experience, was appointed as the new head of the CCR.
By the 1960s, open warfare by homeowners' rights groups came to a head with the proposal of a "Homeowners' Rights Ordinance", and enough petition signatures were collected to put it on the 1964 primary ballot. The ordinance pledged:
...to protect the individual's "right to privacy," the "right to choose his own friends and associates," "the right to freedom from interference with his property by public authorities attempting to give special privileges to any group," the "right to maintain what in his opinion are congenial surroundings for himself, his family, and his tenants," and the "right" to choose a real estate broker and tenants and home buyers "for his own reasons."
(p. 227 my edition) The ballot proposal passed 55-45, although it was declared unconstitutional in 1965 and never implemented.
As the charts below hint, the white exodus began and continued as black Detroiters were able to move into previously-restricted neighborhoods. However, the ideal of integration and racial diversity was rarely achieved because of this white flight, and in fact, persistent physical separation worked to perpetuate racial stereotypes held by whites. "The 'ghetto' was not simply a physical construct; it was also an ideological construct. Urban space became a metaphor for perceived racial differences." (p. 229 my edition) And the battle was not yet over.
Next week's readings: Chapter 9 "'United Communities are Impregnable': Violence and the Color Line" and Conclusion "Crisis: Detroit and the Fate of Postindustrial America"
Supplemental readings: A Contemporary View of the Detroit Region’s History and Demographics (PDF file/PowerPoint presentation; see especially slides 32-34 for a graphic representation of the changing demographics by race.)
Previous diaries in this series: Here, here, here, here, and here.